


Too Close for Comfort

by Kittenshift17



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 00:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17571107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17
Summary: Draco Malfoy taking any sort of interest in here is just a little too close for comfort, as far as Hermione is concerned.





	Too Close for Comfort

“Who gave you that black eye?” Malfoy’s voice stopped her in her tracks and Hermione Granger turned slowly in his direction, her eyes narrowed.

“What black eye?” she denied, refusing to acknowledge it. 

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed on her in return and he stalked toward her slowly, the torch-light of the otherwise darkened corridor flickering at his back and casting his face into shadow.

“Don’t play coy with me, Granger,” he said in a low voice as he moved closer and closer until he invaded her space. “If anyone but me is giving you a hard time, I deserve to know who.”

“You do not,” she scoffed, taking a small step back, trying to reinstate the distance between them. “Just go away, Malfoy. This doesn’t concern you. Our patrol is over, so why don’t you just go back to your common room and forget you ever saw me?”

“You have a black eye, Granger,” he argued coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. “And since I didn’t order anyone to beat the hell out of you, I want to know who did.”

“Why? Going to buy them a butterbeer?” she hissed, scowling.

Malfoy shrugged his shoulders, pinning her in place with his cold gaze.

“What’s it matter to you, anyway, Malfoy?” Hermione huffed, crossing her arms in return and glaring at him. “Worried someone is muscling in on your territory? Tormenting the Mudblood is your game and yours alone, is that it?”

“Something like that,” he shrugged his shoulders, but Hermione would swear from the look on his face that there was more to it than that.

“Well, I’m not telling you,” she spat before spinning on her heels and beginning to stomp away.

She barely got two steps before his hand closed over her wrist, spinning her back to face him. Hermione’s hands came up to ward him off and she gasped when he seized both of her wrists  and forced her backward until her back hit the wall of the corridor.

“Tell me who hit you, Granger,” he bit out angrily. “Now.”

Hermione stomped on his foot and tried to shove him away, but he barely flinched.

“If this is how little a fight you put up, no wonder they blackened your eye,” he sneered meanly and Hermione jerked her wrists in his hold, trying to pull free.

“Let me go, or I”ll give you one to match,” she hissed threateningly when she couldn’t get out of his tight grip.

“Tell me who did it, and I’ll let you go,” he bargained in return.

“Why?” she hissed. “You don’t care that I’m injured. You’re hurting me right now. You only want to know so you can make fun of me.”

She narrowed her eyes when he eased up on his grip until he was no longer hurting her before looking at her imploringly.

“Tell me who did it, Hermione?” he said softly, leaning in even closer until their noses almost touched.

“It... I... It doesn’t matter, Malfoy,” Hermione said, her entire sense of equilibrium unsettled by his use of her first name.

“It matters,” Malfoy countered. “Was it Potter? Weasley, maybe?”

Hermione sighed, recognising that he was never going to let it go if she didn’t just tell him. And what was the worst he could do? Laugh at her for falling for a prank?

“Of course not,” she said. “No one hit me. Someone just thought it would be funny to swap my telescope with one of Fred and George’s prank telescopes that punches whoever looks through it in the eye. So you can relax. No one is muscling in on your turf.”

He frowned, looking a bit like he wanted to laugh at her for having fallen for the prank, but somehow he managed to rein in it.

“Good,” he muttered quietly, his eyes trailing over her blackened eye and then lower, until he was staring at her lips. 

Hermione licked them subconsciously, unsure what to do with the sudden spike in tension between the two of them. His grey eyes flicked up to meet hers for a moment before he looked back at her mouth and leaned in a little, as though testing to see what she would do and whether or not she would lean toward him in return. Her heart began to race inside her chest and Hermione held her breath, uncertain what to do with the sudden swooping low in her abdomen.

Just as she began to lean toward him, unsure just what in the hell she was doing, but feeling the strangest urgency to kiss him, footsteps sounded from around the corner and he dropped his hold on her, stepping back quickly and drawing his wand on whoever was approaching them. Hermione wondered what anyone would make of it if she was to sink to the floor right there should her shaky knees give out beneath her.

“Who’s there?” Malfoy bit old coldly while Hermione tried to calm her racing heart and still the butterflies in her stomach.

Professor Snape rounded the corner right at that moment, and he glared at them coolly for a long moment.

“Your patrol is over,” Snape sneered to the two of them. “Return to your common rooms immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” Malfoy bit out, nodding and stashing his wand once more.

He didn’t look back at Hermione before he walked away.


End file.
